GRAPHICS

GAMEPLAY

STORY

The crazy successful mobile title from Rovio is finally making it’s way to consoles, and it’s most recent expansion Angry Birds: Star Wars is no exception to the move. How does playing with a controller compare to playing with your phone via touch?

Angry Birds: Star Wars is a 2013 puzzle game, it is developed by Rovio and published by Activision (console versions). It is available on, mobile, PC, and all console platforms.

Over and under.

On paper Angry Birds being playable on a console sounds fairly strange, as does most mobile titles that have been on mobile devices for half a decade or so. Still Angry Birds works well enough to get a good amount of enjoyment out of the console port, even if playing with a controller feels awkward. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to play with a Move controller or Kinect, which would have likely made the experience feel more like playing on a phone that’s connected to an HDTV, but all in all I enjoyed Angry Birds: Star Wars.

THE GOOD: It works, that’s going to be one of the first things you realize once you pick up whichever controller you’re using and begin playing the game, especially if you had some sort of reservations over what to expect with a controller vs touch phone situation. It’s pretty much the same Angry Birds: Star Wars experiences that you have on your phone. Which is something that developers should always take into consideration when it comes to mobile-to-console ports, because it’s not always the case from past experiences with mobile ports.

Use the force young bird.

THE BAD: Some of the controls are a bit awkward feeling, especially if you go back and forth between the console and your phone. It’s a little hard to get used to both for a bit, but eventually you get the hang of it.

Angry Birds: Star Wars is beautiful on an HDTV.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: While playing any Angry Birds title on a console seems strange, the good thing is that when you actually play it with the console’s naive controller it still works like it should. Admittedly, some of the controllers were a bit off putting, though you get used to it, and it’s difficult to go back and forth between the mobile and console versions of the game, which again will take some getting used to. Overall though, Angry Birds: Star Wars is one of the best mobile/console ports I’ve played, at least from recent memory anyways.